Dewey Center | Dewey Center | SIU

The Center for Dewey Studies is happy to announce the publication of the Comprehensive Edition of The Correspondence of John Dewey, 1858-2011 edited by Larry Hickman, with a foreword by our new Director Matthew J. Brown. Read more...

The Center for Dewey Studies is the home of research, publishing, and archival materials that focus on the life, work, and legacy of the American philosopher and educator John Dewey. On this site you will find information pertaining to the Center, its resources, and events related to Dewey studies.

If you would like to visit at a different time, or you are planning a longer term visit, please make an appointment by email.

Dewey Center Reading Group

The Center for Dewey Studies hosts a Reading Group on works by and about John Dewey and related figures and topics. The meetings are hybrid, in person at the Center and via Zoom. Please email deweycenter@siu.edu if you would like to join the group and receive emails about future meetings.

In Fall 2023, we will be reading Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology (1922). Meetings will be on Fridays at Noon. 

According to Murray G. Murphey's introduction to the critical edition, this is the "work in which Dewey sought to make explicit the social character of his psychology and philosophy—something which had long been evident but never so clearly spelled out." It is also a key statement of his naturalism in the middle period, and develops his inquiry-oriented ethical theory, grounded in his naturalistic social psychology.